Infected...

To those of you that arrived here via the link in my tweet; well done! I salute your bravery, given that my twitter account was compromised last night and, while I slept, it decided to spam everyone with wonderous money making and dietry claims. I'd understand completely were you now a little sceptical regarding the clicking of any link I recommended.

On my run tonight I got to thinking why I didn't spot the tweet as spam. Why did I click on the link in the message? When I actually realised what had happened, I felt really foolish and more than a little embarrassed. Of course, there was no need to feel foolish or embarrassed; all I'd done was let down my guard momentarily. As I pounded around the bay tonight, I began to feel a little more relaxed about it.

I have a natural (and healthy) scepticism that usually keeps me safe. Had I received the spam that read "Did you hear about how i make money from home part-time? u should give it a shot here http://etcetc" or "Want to lose weight fast? Then you gotta see this http://etcetc", I wouldn't have been duped. Much of the spam that gets sent is an inappropriate match for its intended audience and it fails. However, every so often it works; the reason being of course that the recipient thinks it's genuine.

The one that got me last night was from a friend at work and, in my head, I can hear him now saying it, ROFL this pic i found of you had me dying lol http://etcetc. It was only after clicking on the link several times that it started to dawn on me what I'd done. By then, of course, it was too late.

If you find that your Twitter account has been compromised, you can find out what you should do in their help section. In short:

• Change your password
• Revoke connections
• Update your new password in your trusted third-party applications